Prospect: A Year in the Park

Always some drama or other

This guest park entry will run in reverse chronological order.

Scene III: A perfect summer evening at the Old Stone House, its Revolutionary War museum serving as a staging area. An attentive Park Slope crowd turns out at twilight for an inventive and affecting original production of "The Island of Dr. Moreau" by the Piper Theater Company.  (You can catch it again next Saturday July 21 at 8 p.m. at the same venue; and it's free.)

 

 

 

 

 

Honestly, no one in the world works harder and more joyfully than young, ambitious actors. These ones threw themselves into their bare-bones show with brio on a sultry night, competing with an urban cacaphony of sirens, airplanes, and car horns. At one point, when a character onstage screamed in horror, some wag down on Fourth Avenue screamed back. The cast was unfazed.

 

 

 

 

 

Scene II: That afternoon. A few toddlers clamber over the empty stage in front of the reconstructed 1699 Dutch farmhouse. Today, it sits tucked between a lovely new playground and a swath of artificial turf for ball games, overlooking a Staples and a few blocks from the Gowanus Canal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scene I: August 27, 1776. The house is caught up in the bloodiest encounter of the Battle of Brooklyn, the American Revolution's first pitched battle. Rifle fire and the screams of fallen men rend the air around the marshy farmland, as vastly outnumbered Americans struggle to hold off British and Hessian troops.

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, most of Washington's army retreats from around the area of today's Prospect Park to evacuate across the East River later that night, regroup, and fight on for freedom. The defense of the Stone House meant capture or death for hundreds of patriots. But the legendary valor of William Alexander (known until that day as a vain and gouty inebriate who insisted upon the doubtful title of Lord Stirling) and the elite fighting men of William Smallwood's Marylanders regiment, may well have kept the Revolution from ending that muggy and terrifying day.

 

Ball of confusion

A forest of pale and youthful legs on the march, heading for Day 1 of "The Great GoogaMooga."

The hidden heart of Prospect Park, fenced off and submerged under a sea of the hip and hungry.

Messaging on a melon, part of a wall of fruit near the "UrBarn," an installation (visible in the background) by Pratt students and others to promote farm-to-table-ish, sustainability-ish things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was, however, mostly about the beer. A line of apocalypse-refugee proportions snaked away from a stand distributing some sort of proof that you were old enough to drink. At my age, I think my face should be my passport.

 

The "line talkers" held a variety of perky signs intended to mollify the line waiters. With music within earshot most of the time, the crowd seemed fairly mellow about it all. Spouse waited almost an hour for fried chicken, but enjoyed "Holy Ghost" during the wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a perfect spring day, the sun's intensity put shady spots at a premium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was what restaurant critics often call "an attractive young crowd." Many seemed to know one other or to have descended in groups. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the "Hamageddon" section, a heavy metal band tore it up while a whole pig rotated on a spit inside this gigantic porcine idol. You have to give the founders of this feast credit for thinking big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was fairly painless to score a "Dirty Duck Dog" with lemon-scented sauerkraut from the Craft stand, and a plate of three "fried cheesecake bombs" from a Prospect Heights restaurant called Robert. (Dog, delicious; cheesecake fryballs, kind of like fried ice cream, weirdly compelling.) At all the concessions, the workers were cranking the gourmet chow out frantically; doing this again all day tomorrow would kill me.

By 4 p.m., lots of places were running out of their esoteric specialties. Apparently, this also happened to the folks who forked over $250 for "Extra Mooga" tickets in an ultra-exclusive enclave of foodiness. Our endurance event, at least, was free (well, $12 for two duck dogs and $6 for three cheesecake balls). Altogether, Spouse and I concluded that restaurants had much to recommend them...and that we were probably about 20 years too old to truly appreciate the event. 

 

 

 

Girding for Googa

My hip and happenin' Spouse! Through his alertness and vigor, we have secured 2 tickets to The Great Googa-Mooga Festival, a free-but-sold-out extravaganza of food and live music in Prospect Park this weekend. The line-up of chefs definitely overshadows the musical acts (including Hall & Oates, the underwhelming* headliners).

The entire affair is starting to scare me, based on its wild hype (including this reverently snarky account in the New York Times calling it part of a "gastronomic summer of love"). It sounds as if Williamsburg will uproot, like Howl's Moving Castle, overshadow the Long Meadow, and touch down. In one particularly disturbing development, we have been alerted that "Line Talkers" in purple, Barclay's-Arena-sponsored T-shirts, will be on hand to tell us about menu choices up ahead. Are those like Navajo code-talkers, only for banh mi and panini? Dear Lord, what kind of apocalyptic lines are they expecting for foie-gras donuts and duck rolls?

 

 

 

According to the event's organizers (the merry pranksters at right), "Approximately 75 food vendors, 35 brewers, 30 winemakers and 20 live music performances will be on hand to help us relish some of life’s greatest pleasures—gathering with friends and neighbors to eat, drink, talk, laugh, dance, linger and just . . . be together." Personally, I can't wait to see the prices for all these artisanal noms and craft microbeers.  

A MICRO-RANT: If I am shelling out $20 for an al-fresco lobster roll with organic endangered wildflower sprouts and a touch of lavender foam, I want to eat it at a nice table with a clean bathroom nearby, one with running water and, preferably, a set of previous users smaller and less...free-spirited...than the population of Burning Man. The whole groundlings thing, with mobbed Port-O-San visit followed by lots of hand sanitizer, just doesn't jive with the exquisite haute-cuisine picnic angle for me.

In a slightly discordant note amid all that mellow vibe, for an incredible $250, you can get exclusive "Extra Mooga" tickets, including lectures on "Molecular Mixology" and "Textures of Rhubarb," along with the chance to worship at the shrines of Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, and other luminaries and, for all I know, personally butcher a heritage pig or a fast-food executive. (No word on whether this ransoms you out of the Port-O-San scene, however.)

But I quibble. Perhaps tomorrow you will see me crowd-surfing with a sprig of cilantro hanging off my lower lip, waving a draft lager brewed from hummingbird tongues and sobering up with some shade-grown, dolphin-safe macchiato. If you failed to score tickets, let's agree on a spot near the fence, and I'll toss you over a $40 sausage or something.

'READY FOR MARTY'?

* Hall & Oates belong to a category of act that we call "Ready for Marty," in reference to Borough President Marty Markowitz's long-running series of free summer concerts featuring well-loved but often fading pop acts. Markowitz, who relishes his role as B-list impresario, once mused aloud before a concert, when a crowd member shouted a suggestion for the line-up (Kenny Loggins, if memory serves): "Yeah...he's about ready for us."

Sizzle

Things were heating up on Saturday at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket: Peppers are coming in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This life-size milking cow showed up to promote the Dutchess County Fair. I love big fiberglass animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zucchini usually come in green or yellow, long or patty-pan, but Evolutionary Organics has piebald globey ones this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The morning's haul: tomatoes (beefsteak and yellow cherry), peaches, collards, garlic, arugula, mesclun, and a $6 Jersey canteloupe. Slaughtered, it provided three generous servings, so at $2 per serving that's not so bad for melon bliss. Still, it amazes me how fast we burn through cash in pursuit of seasonal delights. 

 

 

By dusk, things were heating up musically: We stopped in at the bandshell's Celebrate Brooklyn concert to hear Red Baraat, a brassy Bhangra band we'd loved at the Botanic Garden's Chili Pepper Festival. Talk about infectious beats; a few folks couldn't resist rocking out. We left before the venerable Dr. John took the stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight's Greenmarket dinner: Pasta panzanella from Giuliano Bugialli's pasta book. The only thing cooked is the spaghetti; you put hot pasta on a bed of fresh arugula, and spoon over a mix of chopped raw tomato, onion and garlic marinated simply in olive oil, with basil over the top. Great for a hot night.

Peaches and pianos

Yes, the peaches were in yesterday at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, but I was too busy overbuying them to snap any "peach porn." (My AYITP entry of that title still gets lots of Google hits.) Also in was a rickety decoupaged piano from the "Sing for Hope: Pop-Up Pianos" project, returning to the city's streets again this summer in slightly altered form (and without the participation of Luke Gerram, the British artist who started it).

 

The Grand Army Plaza piano sits in one of those elegant little marble-columned shelters that, upon entry, reveal themselves to be latrines. Undeterred by the Seventies-evoking stench, a dad played (quite well) and sang (enthusiastically) the Beatles' "Michelle" while his family waited stoically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did our first Random Picnic, which must involve (a) no planning and (b) stuff we just bought at the Greenmarket. The proliferating food trucks around the market make this way too easy. Our current obsession is coffee (iced today) from the Love Truck, which has steamed milk and a great Sixties soundtrack blasting out.

 

I couldn't resist a $5 high-end grilled cheese sandwich from the 3-day-old "Morris" truck. I wonder why? (And why are so many food-truck guys adorable?) The sandwich was great—molten New York State cheddar on sourdough, with even more "artisanal" options available. The truck is named after his grandpa Morris.

Other options we like include the dumpling truck with faux-Maoist graphics...but we hate the juice truck, with its evil green "Pirate" juice purporting to be healthy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed with grilled cheese, peaches and iced coffee, we perched on our favorite hill near the park's entrance and watched the world go by.

 

Hot lips at BBG

Throughout a chilly, drizzly Monday, I longed for the warm sun and scorching flavors of Saturday's Chile Pepper Fiesta at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It has gotten bigger and hotter since our last visit 2 years ago. The guys from a restaurant called Cabrito got us started with salsas red and green (and wonderful freshly fried chips). Much of what's on the program relates only loosely to the notion of chiles, but these were the real deal. Spouse, of course, had forgotten to bring his Axid.

Vendors doled out lots of spicy concoctions, most created by small-scale and local entrepreneurs. I liked the headgear on this lady making fried Guyanese tidbits to douse with "Guyank" pepper sauce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow cones from "People's Pops" came in watermelon-jalapeno and roasted heirloom pepper. "Convention is overrated," said the shaved-ice maestro. We also sucked back tiny cups of rich, chile-infused hot chocolate from Tumbador that was the anti-Swiss Miss. (The chocolate-chile axis was a major theme, as herds of us waited patiently to snap up tidbits.)

 

The beer and food tent featured long lines for beer and middling chile-themed chow, but the wait was easier thanks to "Red Baraat", described as "a masala of Bollywood, brass, and bhangra beats."

 

 

 

 

 

After all that red-hot festivity, these cool blue sage blossoms beckoned near the pond.

Expotition season

That's Pooh, not Palin. But it is time to refudiate our grievances and head off for summer adventures, like these day campers did last Wednesday. If you are not leaving town for mid-summer, pack a picnic and try a part of Prospect Park you've never explored before.

The park abounds in quirky activities--this weekend alone, there will be flax harvesting at the homestead and, speaking of do-it-yourselfing, "a DIY World's Fair of music and art" at the Bandshell (featuring folks named Cucu Diamantes, Les Nubians, Los Hanky Pankys, and Monsta X).

And of course there will be the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket every Saturday morning, where the signage is very DIY (and organic).

 

 

If you miss it, did you know there's a small but very serviceable Wednesday Greenmarket at Bartell Pritchard Circle (across from the movie theater)? Stroll on over and play peek-a-boo with the Yukon Golds.

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully.

"It's the same thing," he said."

--A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh

Never can say goodbye

Happy birthday wherever you are, Michael Jackson! Today's memorial bash on the park's Nethermead, a Spike Lee joint, was a mellow and exuberant party by the time we got there at 4 p.m. or so. The light rain had ended, and a vast crowd grooved to Jackson hits spun by a superb DJ. 

    

However tragically he spun out of orbit, Michael clearly inspired a lot of love...and self-expression. The crowd was full of folks wearing their hearts on their sleeves, or chests. T-shirt tributes ranged from somber to sparkly.

        

 

Personal style homages ranged from the sublime...

to the ridiculous.

A lot of folks brought their little ones, who perched on shoulders to see the Jumbotron and the swaying crowd.

It reminded me of a Kinks concert we saw years ago:  at least two, if not three, generations all getting into the music.

Of course, a few were too young to appreciate "Beat It" or "Thriller" or even "Rockin' Robin." For lots more photos, see coverage by fellow blogger Brooklyn Vegan.

And, as always when there's free music in Brooklyn, there were Lone Dance Maniacs, for whom MIchael, a sui generis dance genius, is a fitting patron saint. I will spare you the old lady in purple tights and flowing gray hair who was performing her own private eurythmics. But the fellow below gets my "Don't Dream It...Be It" award of the day.

 

JACKO BOOTS BARD FROM PARK

Late-breaking news about this weekend's other planned festivity in Prospect Park, from the feisty thespians at the Rebellious Subjects Theatre:

Our SECOND WEEKEND of Henry IV and V fast approaches...and Spike Lee has stepped in to change our plans.  In moving his 10,000 person tribute to the Park, he has inadvertently kicked independent theatre quite literally right off the stage.

That's right, the park has taken away our permit to perform on Saturday, August 29th due to the Michael Jackson tribute.  So what did we do??

RESCHEDULED BOTH SHOWS TO SUNDAY.  Which means SUNDAY, AUGUST 30TH is now officially HENRY MARATHON DAY.

Now, that's what I call "show-must-go-on" spirit. Let's get out there this Sunday, by God, for Harry and Saint George! The troupe's 23 actors of "diehard spirit and dedication" are unfolding their Henry trilogy in the park's shaded Music Pagoda; although I missed the first installment (Henry IV Part I) last weekend, it seems from this review that they mean business, bard-wise. Last year, they performed Chekhov's "Three Sisters" at the park's Lefferts Homestead, so these are troupers indeed.

Here's the timing:

12:30pm
HENRY IV
The saga begins...

3-4:30pm
DINNER BREAK
We take a brief interlude...

4:30pm
HENRY V
...The stunning conclusion.

LITERARY BONUS: SOME QUOTES FOR MICHAEL FROM WILL'S HENRY V

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.

His nose was as sharp as a pen...

Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell.

Unsullied

Look at the entry below, and then imagine how much work (and care) went into restoring the Long Meadow to pristine green by Wednesday afternoon. Cross-country runners from local high schools were able to stretch and sprint on the endless grass. Here's a big thank-you to everyone, staff or parks volunteer, who undid the damage wrought by the "Heatwave" crowd.

This weekend, wouldn't it be loverly if folks decided to leave it this way? We can dream, as does this bunny, who hangs out near the Litchfield Villa.

TWIPP (THIS WEEKEND IN PROSPECT PARK)

Friday night, the swamp-boogie accordionist Buckwheat Zydeco comes to the Prospect Park bandshell. There's a bike race (Round 5 of the "Cadence Cup," think steely-legged Lycra dudes) if you're up by 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, God forbid. On Saturday at 11 a.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., the Imagination Playground will host "Daydream," a version of "Midsummer Night's Dream" with puppets and tutu-clad construction workers (Shakespeare would probably approve). Bollywood icon Kailash Kher is at the bandshell on Saturday at 7:30, and on Sunday at 3:30 they're harvesting flax at the Lefferts Homestead. To paraphrase Cindy Adams, only in Prospect Park, kids.